In response to inflammatory stimuli, neutrophils in the adjacent vasculature initially roll on the blood vessel wall, then stick, and finally transmigrate to the site of insult. The initial rolling event involves a class of adhesion proteins termed selectins (P-, E-, and L-selectin) which mediate the interaction between leukocytes and endothelial cells by their recognition of specific carbohydrate counter-structures, including sialyl-Lewis x. The primary sequence/motif structure of each of the selectins is similar. Each contains a N-terminal, 118-amino acid calcium-dependent lectin domain, an EGF motif, a variable number of tandem repetitive motifs related to motifs found in complement regulatory domains, a transmembrane domain and a short cytoplasmic tail.
P-selectin is a 140-kDa integral granule membrane glycoprotein localized to platelet-granules and the Weibel-Palade bodies of endothelial cells and is rapidly expressed on both cell types on cell activation. This suggests that endothelial P-selectin is a critical molecule mediating initial adhesion events in acute inflammation, a view recently supported by a number of in vivo inflammatory models including neutrophil-dependent acute lung injury (Mulligan et al. (1992) J. Clin. Invest. 90, 1600), endotoxin-induced neutropenia (Coughlan et al. (1994) J. Exp. Med. 179, 329), reperfusion injury (Asako et al. (1994) J. Clin. Invest. 93, 1508) and histamine-induced leukocyte rolling in post capillary venules (Weyrich et al. (1993) J. Clin. Invest. 91, 2620). P-selectin binds to 10,000-20,000 copies of a single class of binding sites on neutrophils and HL60 cells.
Sako et al. ((1993) Cell 75, 1179) have cloned the ligand for P-selectin, termed P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1) (see also copending application Ser. No. 08/316,305). PSGL-1 is a 220 kDa, disulfide-linked homodimeric sialomucin which, when expressed in COS cells with the appropriate fucosyltransferase, binds P-selectin in a similar calcium-dependent manner to the receptor on neutrophis. PSGL-1 has a signal peptide sequence of 17 amino acids followed by a 24-amino acid PACE propeptide sequence. The mature N-terminus of PSGL-1 contains an unusual stretch of twenty amino acids which is rich in negatively-charged aspartate and glutamate residues and which contains three tyrosine residues which meet the consensus sequence for 0-sulfation by a golgi sulfotransferase. At least one of these tyrosine residues is sulfated as evaluated by site-directed mutagenesis.
In addition to binding P-selectin, PSGL-1 also binds E-selectin. In contrast to P-selectin, however, the requirements for E-selectin recognition are much less rigid. E-selectin binds a wide variety of sialomucin structures if they co-express the sialyl-Lewis x structure. L-selectin binds to a number of different counter-receptors, GLYCAM-1, MadCAM-1 and CD34, which like PSGL-1, are also sialomucins. A major question currently unresolved is what determines selectin specificity in the recognition of specific counter-receptor structures. P-, E- and L-selectin are 60-70% homologous in their N-terminal, 118-amino acid lectin motifs and each similarly recognizes the sialyl-Lewis x and sialyl-Lewis a carbohydrate structures. Further, binding of P-selectin to its receptor on neutrophils is four to five orders of magnitude more avid than the binding of sialyl-Lewis x. While differences in specificity and avidity may in part be accounted for by either the presentation of multiple sialyl-Lewis carbohydrate structure, it is probable that the protein component of the sialomucin also determines selectin interaction.
Although the inflammatory response mediated by the P-selectin/PSGL-1 interaction is a part of the body's normal defense system, over aggressive inflammatory responses can also result in the development of various inflammatory disease states. It would, therefore, be desirable to provide agents for interfering with or blocking the P-selectin/PSGL-1 interaction in order to treat inflammatory disease.